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has run up quite dramatically over the past six weeks. It is up more than 20% since the start of May, but at the same time, earnings estimates have been moving in the opposite direction.

San Diego, California-based Bridgepoint Education provides post-secondary education services. Its academic institutions, Ashford University and University of the Rockies offer associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in the disciplines of business, education, psychology, social sciences and health sciences. Founded in 1999, the company was known as TeleUniversity until it changed its name in February 2004.

Looking to the earnings history, I see a stock that has missed the number in two of the last three reports and posted an earnings meet in the other instance. The September 2012 quarter came in 17% below expectations and the following quarter was a negative earnings surprise of 3.3%.

Estimates for BPI have slid over the past several months. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2013 stood at $2.21 in August, 2012. Over the next several months estimates dramatically decreased from $2.13 in October, to $1.55 in December, to $1.28 in April to a current $0.98.

The 2014 Estimates have also been dropping. The Zacks Consensus Estimate was $1.42 in February and has plunged lower to $1.01 in April and down to $0.61, where it sits today. The glaring indication of troubling times to come is apparent when you see that estimates for 2014 are lower than the current year.

The valuation picture for BPI is one that looks good at first glance, with a trailing P/E of 6x and forward multiple of 13x. Both measures are well below the industry average. The price-to-book of 1.3x is also less than half the 3.0x industry average.

But the devil is in the details here, with revenues declining 18.5% in 2013 and are expected to be 8.6% lower again in 2014. EPS is also declining at a 57% rate for 2013 and 38% for 2014 compared to an industry average increase of 5% in 2013 and 13% in 2014. So the valuation is moving lower as the company slips behind the industry rate of growth of earnings.

The chart for BPI looks pretty good right now, but the 20%+ move from the start of May to the $13 level the stock is currently at is simply not supported by the fundamentals. With estimates moving lower, investors will see that this is a stock they do not want to hold in their portfolio's until the earnings turnaround.